From Peter Murray – the artist who buys cars

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Murray Crescent – an explanation

I love to paint and I experiment with all sorts of supports and mediums, paints, inks, pastels, charcoal, chalk, spray paints; in fact there are very few boundaries in my quest for originality. I want to make artworks that don’t fit the normal pigeonhole, so that the people who own them know that they are looking at something no-one else in the world owns. I also want to help people to open their own minds and have fun with art, whether they are doing it themselves or viewing it in all its manifestations.

This website will, I hope, open possibilities for you, considering art in its many forms and give you a level of enjoyment which will transmit to you a real ‘feel good factor’. If you feel at ease, it can have the same effect on those around you – like smiles and laughter, art has a way of neutralising negative thoughts and allowing your creative energy to come to the surface. OK, so it can sometimes drive you mad too, but hey – no pain, no gain and usually it can really raise your enjoyment levels. Positive thinking is in my DNA and I hope my enthusiasm comes across.

I started to paint in 1996, when I joined a local art group which was being formed by two enthusiastic ladies. They were really helpful and organised some great activities and demonstrations. Although the numbers dwindled and the group folded after about twenty months, I knew that although it wasn’t going to be a substitute for the day job, as a hobby with enormous potential, I couldn’t fault it. I then joined The Society of Marple Artists in 1998 and have been privileged to meet some wonderful people, both here and at the various exhibitions I have either visited, or at which I have shown my work. I even managed to blag my way onto the SMA committee as secretary for three years, which is a great way to meet previously unknown members and make a positive contribution.

It’s in my nature to take things to the next level. When I worked for a motor dealership for many years, I wanted my own business. I started (in the middle of a recession, just to add a little spice!) and moved into the present garage on the 5th of April 1993. I have loved it ever since. As soon as I got serious about painting, I nurtured the idea of running an art gallery, like an awful lot of artists dream about, but leaving it at just that – a dream.

On Easter Monday, 2011, I hung ten paintings on a wall of one of the waiting rooms at the garage and the reaction was so positive that there are now 70 – 80 original artworks for sale at any one time, in the adjoining rooms which we now know as ‘ the gallery at HLG.’ Anne Wright, one of the aforementioned art group ladies, is now a regular displayer of her work, which I find very gratifying. I will always remember the time and trouble she took to show me the ‘wet-on-wet’ watercolour technique, which convinced me at the time that she was brandishing a magic wand rather than a paintbrush! I developed a new appreciation of colour, clouds, trees – just about everything aesthetic at that time. Who would have thought that snow can be more effective painted in shades of blue rather than white, for example?

Art has so many facets and as an enthusiastic practitioner who is scraping the surface, I can’t begin to convey the sense of anticipation and excitement it gives me. Now, thanks to the power of communication the Internet provides, I can share my enthusiasm, learn from and help others, in this wonderful world of visual feasts. Feel free to visit Murray Crescent and come back whenever you like. There’s plenty going on, loads yet to come and I’d like to think you get as much pleasure out of it as I do in making it happen. Enjoy! Peter